Tesla's New Roadster Flips Over a Semi on Cold-Gas Thrusters, Production Set for 2028

Tesla's second-generation Roadster is back, almost nine years after it was first shown, and it's a different car. At a livestreamed event outside Waco, Texas, on the night of Thursday, October 15, Tesla showed a redesigned two-seater driving up a ramp that curls over until the car hangs upside down, then leaving it, turning back over in the air and landing. The second demo, which Tesla posted as "The Kickflip," sent it flipping through the air over a row of five Teslas, Semi included. Tesla says production starts in 2028.

The stunts run on compressed air, not rocket fuel, and Jalopnik notes nobody was inside the demo cars. Tesla engineering VP Lars Moravy said the demo car's 10 thrusters draw on 600 liters of air, which can be refilled, and Tesla says it fills every usable void in the car with carbon-fiber pressure vessels to store it. By Jalopnik's count, four point down at the corners, two on the front fenders handle sideways pushes and four face backward for speed. Tesla's site adds a fan and ground-sealing system that it says pulls enough air from under the car to hold it upside down, even standing still, and says the thrusters' electric actuators make adjustments within a fraction of a second to keep it steady in flight.

Tesla

The trims

There are three, and Tesla sells the top two as add-ons it calls augments. Performance, road ready, seats two and has active aero and the suction system. Thrust, a limited release, adds thrusters at the rear and, Tesla says, 0 to 60 mph in under a second. Rocket, invite only, seats one and adds what Tesla calls a full flight system, with thrusters around the whole car for lifting and turning in the air. Tesla's page puts it plainly: "So yes, it can fly." The same page notes the Rocket isn't approved for public roads. Range is quoted at around 300 miles, and the Rocket at over 230 mph.

Reservations reopened on Thursday at $50,000 for a Performance, $5,000 of it due up front and the rest within 10 days, and TechCrunch reports $250,000 to reserve a Thrust. The price of the car itself hasn't been announced.

Take the performance numbers as Tesla's. It showed a recorded 0-to-60 run of one second, then a live run it called 0.81 seconds, with no timer on screen, as Jalopnik points out. And Musk said on stage that the production car should reach half the speed of sound, far beyond the 230 mph Tesla had just quoted.

The design

It looks nothing like the 2017 car. The body is sharper and more angular, painted in what Tesla calls Ano White, a finish it says takes its cue from the protective coatings used on rockets, with Gold Glazed glass made to look like a spacesuit visor. Tesla named the SR-71 spy plane and the F-35 fighter as inspiration, and the Lotus Esprit from The Spy Who Loved Me, which Musk owns, was on display at the event. Inside it's Ultrawhite with gray microsuede, a yoke for steer-by-wire, manual controls and a fixed seat to save weight. The 2017 car's four seats are gone: two at most now.

Tesla

The read

Tesla first showed this Roadster in November 2017, at the end of its Semi event, promising 0 to 60 in 1.9 seconds, 620 miles of range and four seats. It took $50,000 deposits, and $250,000 for one of the first 1,000 Founders Series cars. Then it slipped, again and again; this event was set for October 1 until Tesla moved it two weeks, citing the weather. Next to those promises, the new car has about half the range and half the seats, and a party trick the old one never had. Musk has said he isn't sure the car moves Tesla's revenue much, and it doesn't need to: it's a halo car, and the demos were the point.

Still unanswered: the price, what Tesla does for the people who paid deposits in 2017 on a car with a different design and different specs, and whether Thursday's numbers hold up when someone other than Tesla holds the stopwatch.